Team Trump: Three Weeks Till Disaster

 

Team Trump: Twenty-Three Days to Disaster.

 

WITH GOP POLL NUMBERS shifting from grim to gruesome, this would be a good time to survey the voters’ mood. According to the president, and all his apologists, everyone loves him, except communists and American-hating transgenders. 

If we take the trouble to study the poll numbers, however, we find that Trump is just about as popular as the idea of being forced to eat liver and onions for dinner. And I mean every dinner for a month. 

Plus, for snacks.

That man does love his golf.

 

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Trump Derangement Syndrome spreading like measles! 

We first did a check on September 23, when it was already clear that The Dumpling Man was drowning in negative approval/disapproval numbers. 

As below:  

  

These aren’t “fake news,” numbers, or “rigged polls,” either. On his handling of the economy, the president had an average approval rating of 34 percent. As of October 12, he stands squarely in the same basic spot, at 33.7 approving and 63.2% not, putting him at “only” minus 29.5%. 

On taming inflation, you can probably guess. His marks are horrible. Only 27.3 percent of Americans approve of the job that he’s doing, and 69.3 percent think Donald should quit renaming shit. 

That would put him at minus-40. 

In fact, he’s underwater on every major issued polled, including handling of the Iran War (32.7% approve, 63.3% don’t). Those awful numbers would include minus-26.3% on foreign policy, immigration (minus-10.8), and even crime, at -7.4. On his handling of the Ukraine War, 58.8% disapprove and 34% of Americans approve – apparently because that third of voters appear to have forgotten that Donald boasted that he could end that war within 24-hours, as soon as he won the 2024 election. He wouldn’t even need to be president. 

Polling regarding the president’s handling of matters between Israel and Hamas is limited, with the only recent poll showing him at 34%-60% approval/disapproval. 

Meanwhile, Team Trump toadies are trying to pin the inflation problems on Joe Biden, last seen leaving the White House on the morning of January 20, 2025. That was 630 days ago. That afternoon, Donald promised he would start bringing down prices on “Day 1,” and we would soon be enjoying $2 gas, and our electric bills would be cut in half. Only prices have not come down. 

Now, even many of the MAGA faithful are losing faith over this failure. According to a recent poll of 4,500 Americans, done by Reuters, “Some 78% of Americans blame President Donald Trump's policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings,” with “majorities of [both] Republicans and Democrats citing the cost of living as their top concern ​ahead of next month’s midterm elections.”

Another fun way to look at the growing danger Republicans face is to look at the trend lines since Trump plunked his fat ass down in the White House twenty-one months ago. At this point even “Lucious Natalie” Harp, Trump’s favorite go-everywhere-he-goes, all-positive-all-the-time aide, may be having trouble keeping a smile glued to her gorgeous face. Natalie! That young lady is always around. 

(Melania? Not so much.)

Mrs. Harp goes everywhere Donald goes.

Here is how Donald Dumpling stood on September 23, before he headed out for a last-ditch round of campaign rallies, hoping to rally his base:

Here is where Donald stood on September 23.

 

How has Donald been doing since we checked in three weeks ago? He has been out on the hustings, as they say, selling his great plans to “Make America Great Again after the Midterms.” 

Voters, as they say, are skeptical.  

As this blogger might say, even many loyal MAGA voters finally seem to understand that The Dumpling Man is a prolific liar and a fool who wants to rename either the Atlantic or Pacific the “Trump Ocean.”

His numbers still suck.

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GOP House majority is toast. 

THE SIGNS OF DANGER for Republicans running for Congress are also multiplying. Democrats now hold a 8.2-point lead on the “Generic Congressional Ballot.” That means 50.3% of voters want Democrats to regain control. Only 42.1 % hope Republicans keep their majorities. 

For a fun comparison, go back to 2018, when Democrats held a 7.3-point lead and took back 41 seats in the House. 

Also, keep in mind that Donald J. Trump, during his first term, swore in June 2018 that there was going to be a “big red wave.”

He was delusional then. 

He was delusional in 2020. 

He was delusional in 2024, even though he won, as the polling predicted he would. (It wasn’t a “landslide.”) He’s keeping delusion alive now.

  

Again, the trend lines over the last twelve months present a discouraging picture if you love Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Sen. Mitch “Back from the Dead” McConnell, and winning the Iran War in one day. 

 

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The Dumpling may cost Republicans control of the Senate. 

Until recently, it had seemed the GOP would keep its grip on a majority in the U.S. Senate. Now, if you are still rocking the red MAGA baseball cap, polling numbers look ominous there, too. 

In Texas, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate has a 2.8-point lead in the aggregate of all the polls taken. Even better, the danger to Republicans in the Lone Star State boils down to the president’s insistence that GOP voters back Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, instead of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. As a liberal blogger, I’m not a fan of Cornyn; but at least he’s honest. 

Paxton is a straight-up crook. 

He was impeached by his own party and ordered to pay $6.6 million in damages for retaliating against whistleblowers who worked on his own staff. Then he somehow convinced the Texas legislature that lawmakers should pass legislation to pay the damages – which, of course means the taxpayers are footing the bill. 

Here in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, who lost his U.S. Senate seat in 2024, now has a 3.1-point lead in a race to win back a seat in the same illustrious body. 

In Michigan, a Muslim American candidate for U.S. Senate, is keeping his Republican incumbent at bay, at least so far. El-Sayed has a 2.7-point advantage. And it won’t help his Republican opponent to know that the president has declared economic war on Canada, doing serious damage to cross-border businesses in that state. 

Maine looks ready to tip toward Democrats, where their candidate holds a 1.2-point lead over incumbent Susan Collins. Alaska is also in play, with the challenger leading the GOP incumbent by 1.4. 

Indeed, there are several roads to a majority for Democrats in the upper house, although the polls are close. 

The numbers in North Carolina are so bad for the GOP that donor money is being diverted to U.S. Senate races in states once thought safe. So, Democrats are almost certain to pick up a seat there. 

Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate, is at +9. 

Unfortunately, if you love Donald Trump, there are tornado warnings in the heartland. In Iowa, as of today, RealClearPolitics has the Democratic candidate for Senate narrowly ahead, but very possibly surging (0.6-point lead). Even worse, or better, if you are like this happy blogger, a Democratic candidate for governor has a more substantial lead in the same polls. 

Then, consider Kansas, where the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden suddenly believes it might be able to capture another GOP seat. No Democrat has been elected from that state to serve in the U.S. Senate since 1932, not long after Herbert Hoover plunged the country into the Great Depression. 

Incumbent Roger Marshall has seen his hopes of winning another term wilt, in part because two-term former Kansas governor, Bill Graves, a fellow Republican, has endorsed his opponent. 

As Graves put it recently, “For the last six years, Senator Roger Marshall has turned his back on Kansas. In contrast, Adam Hamilton stands as a bulwark of kindness, humility and service to others.” 

Hamilton happens to be a fifth-generation Kansan and a senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. 

(In other words: A hard candidate to paint as a “communist.”) 

(But Stephen Miller will still lie and try.)

 

A poll taken on September 18, had Hamilton inching ahead, 45% to 43%. Two polls earlier last month showed Marshall with a decent lead. Now the Cook Political Report has changed its rating on the race to “Toss-Up.” 

As for Sen. Marshall, his real problem is that he has backed President Trump at every turn; and farmers in Kansas are hurting. Diesel fuel in the “Sunflower State” is currently selling for $6 per gallon. 

According to RealClearPolitics, that race is now tied. 

Republicans had dreamed of snagging a Democratic seat in New Hampshire. Those dreams appear kaput.  

Well, then, how about a pickup in Georgia, where a Trump loyalist of the neo-Nazi style is facing off against Jon Ossoff, who happens to be a Jew. 

That Republican candidate is toast. 

Then we have South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham’s sister is running for a six-year term, after filling his seat briefly, after his untimely demise. Consider this grim fact, if you still love Donald Dumpling and do love liver and onions. 

Sister Graham is up by two measly points. And that, in a state that Trump won two years ago by 17.8 points. 

In fact, it’s worth pointing this out bluntly, if you just don’t like the polls as they stand. The same pollsters predicted Donald Trump would crush Hillary Clinton in South Carolina in 2016, and he did. The same pollsters made a similar prediction in 2020, and, as predicted, Joe Biden got smoked in the state.

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Aggregate poll numbers are almost always accurate. 

IT IS TRUMP GOSPEL, of course, that bad polls are always fake and the work of communists and hoaxers, and that beneath the surface not only Melania still loves Donald, but all patriotic Americans do too.

I know how accurate aggregated poll numbers have been in the last twenty years. As a Democratic supporter, he could look at the numbers in 2024, and it was a near certainty that Kamala Harris was going to get cooked. 

On the eve of the 2024 election, RealClear indicated that Trump lead in five of seven battleground states; and if those numbers were correct, it was clear The Dumpling was going to gain a second term. In the end, he won all seven. Because I am unable to delude myself, when evidence is piled high against me, I expected the last presidential election to be grim for our side.

And it was. 

The final voting margins from the seven key states in 2024:

 

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So, imagine that you are a Trump supporter – right now! Look at these approval numbers for Mr. Trump in his second term and rejoice! 

Aren’t they fantastic! 

Aren’t they fabulous! And so well deserved!!!! 

And didn’t you just know the fake polls were fake and the pollsters who fake them secretly want a hundred million illegal immigrants to vote! You just know in your heart that these numbers are real. 

In fact, they are. Or, should we say, “were?”

 

Sadly, you believe in Trump’s lies because you want to believe all the bad poll numbers are fake. Like children on Christmas Eve, you wait for Santa to come down the chimney and bring back $2-per-gallon gas. 

Can you trust the pollsters? Well, you could in January 2025, in the earliest days of Donald Trump’s second term. 

Those numbers above are from the same pollsters now reporting that Donald is in a world of hurt.

And here’s a poll number that should chill the spines of even Stephen Miller, Trump’s favorite white supremacist, White House aide. Among independents, only 18% approve of the job he’s doing. 

A whopping 71% don’t.

 

The betting line is that the Republicans will lose five seats, when Democrats only need four to gain control. 

(The blogger never denies the facts.) 

(The GOP hold on the Senate may turn out to be safe.)

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GOP incumbents waking up to danger. 

THERE ARE PLENTY OF SIGNS that members of Donald’s own party are worried. Internal polling done by Republicans shows that in one Texas district, where Trump won by 17 points two years ago, James Talarico leads Paxton 52 to 41. 

(That’s a 28-point swing.)

 

Brent Buchanan, a Republican pollster, has warned GOP candidates, including congressional incumbents, to poll their districts to be sure they’re safe – even if they won in 2024 by as much as fifteen points. 

Suddenly, even close Trump allies are showing signs of courage. Or maybe they only care about self-preservation. In Iowa, a state Donald Dumpling won by more than 13 points in 2024, U.S. Senate candidate Ashley Hinson has been sniffing the shifting political winds and smelling skunk cabbage. 

Once she had promised to be Trump’s “strongest ally” if elected. In her most recent campaign pitch, she took an entirely new approach: “It used to be that reaching across the aisle wasn’t just OK, it was expected. Some people in Washington forgot that. I never have.” 

(Trump forgot it if you’ve forgotten.)

 

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, running in a majority-Latino district in Florida, has also had a come-to-Jesus-moment. Her own voters are turning against The Dumpling, as I prefer to refer to Mr. Trump.

(I think our president is 270 pounds of lard encased in an expensive suit.)

 

In happier times, Salazar liked to show up on Fox News and say that the president needed a “deportation army” to help him drive out all the undesirable illegals. 

Now she’s warning: “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

(Yeah, they were.)

 

Suddenly, the Florida congresswoman who wants to keep her job, her perks, her good pay, and her dream of becoming a lobbyist for fat cats after she leaves office, realizes that deporting hard-working immigrants, with no criminal records, isn’t selling with most voters. At least not Hispanics. 

Or people with minimal empathy.

 

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Not much hope for improvement. 

AS BAD as they look currently, the numbers are likely to look worse by the time the polls open. With Speaker of the House Mike Johnson losing his nerve and sending his members home on a six-week recess – one assumes, so that they can’t pile up any more blunders and stupid decisions – Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) warned that “you can’t deny what people feel.” 

As for President Dumpling, he’s busy golfing, obsessing about his Golden Ballroom, and his Trump Triumphal Arch, and focusing on Natalie Harp’s shapely legs and lovely lips. Also, he’s renaming lakes! Just what the MAGA folks voted for! Six-dollar-a-gallon diesel fuel and “Lake America.” 

Now, maybe “Trump Ocean” is in the mix. 

And might we ask why the President of the United States insists he needs that dumb arch in D.C., because he now insists he wants to put killer drones and snipers on top. The burning question becomes: Who does he want those snipers to shoot? 

(Maybe the imaginary Reflecting Pool “vandals.”)